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Much like other manufacturers out there with a "special edition" card, the XFX Fatal1ty series is slightly more expensive yet you'll receive some pretty nifty extra candy. In the case of the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB they are offering you an overclocked model equipped with nothing less than a reference cooler.

But hey, let's start with my standard bit about the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. The best way to look at a product and get an understanding about where it is performance wise, is by looking at it's price and then comparing that price with other products. After that we can look at the tech specs. It establishes a good perspective of product positioning. Have a look:

• GeForce 8800 Oeltra - $699
• GeForce 8800 GTX - $599
• GeForce 8800 GTS - $449
• GeForce 8800 GTS  - $299 (320 MB)

Since not everyone can afford to cough up half their monthly salary to play games, this is where the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB surfaced a couple of months ago. Fact is that the 640 MB product was selling in rather unpleasant numbers. The 640 MB model is targeted at the 400'ish USD retail price segment, people simply decided to invest more money and go for the flagship card, the GTX.

So NVIDIA scratched behind their NVIDIA logo'd ears and had to do something about that. It's goes something like this: the two most expensive and important items on a graphics card are the graphics chipset and the memory. You can understand that leaving the graphics core intact 100% yet saving money on the memory has a rather unusual and special effect. You'll get the RAW performance of the GPU, yet you'll be limited in uber-high resolutions or in instances where the GPU has to manage complex memory dependant operations (AA for example).

Core frequency then: Any GTS model will come with a 500 MHz core clock at standard (overclocked editions are obviously faster as you'll see in our review today) and thus is also available in a 640. The memory at standard is clocked at 800 (1600 effective).

Other than that we'll now get to the Unified Shaders slash streaming processors (please read our reference 8800 GTS/GTX review if you want to learn about the this shader architecture). The sheer number of these units as you know has been cut down from 128 (GTX) to 96 shader cores for the GTS. Bare in mind though that the number of Shader processors (96) is exactly the same as on the 640 MB model as it is on this 320 Mb model. So you have a 100% similar graphics core on this 320 Mb model, and that's like chocolate in a golden wrapper as everybody expected the number of shader processors to be downsized as well. Even the shader domain clock frequency is clocked 100% similar to the 640 MB model at 1200 MHz.

Other novelties: the 320 MB GTS is a HDCP compliant product, so it has support for two high-res monitors with the help of Dual-Link DVI. Also the standard VIVO options including HDTV output are present. So this is a HD ready product.

Some generic 8 series facts:

• All NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GTS-based graphics cards are HDCP capable.
• The GeForce 8 Series GPUs are not only the first shipping DirectX 10 GPUs, but they are also the reference GPUs for DirectX 10 API development and certification and are 100% DirectX 9 compatible.
• GeForce 8800 GPUs deliver full support for Shader Model 4.0.
• All graphics cards are being built by NVIDIAs contract manufacturer.
• All GeForce 8800 GPUs support NVIDIA SLI technology.
• The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX has a 24 pixel per clock ROP. The GeForce 8800 GTS has a 20 pixel per clock ROP.
• GeForce 8800 GTX requires a minimum 450W or greater system power supply (with 12V current rating of 30A). GeForce 8800 GTS requires a minimum 400W or greater system power supply (with 12V current rating of 26A).

XFX GeForce 8800 320MB GTS Fatal1ty edition

So here's where we arrive at XFX. The Fatal1ty edition is quite a regular looking GeForce 8800 GTS card. It's pretty much the same PCB and processor, but that's where it ends. Performance is awesome for this product.

The reference (default design) model GeForce 8800 320 MB GTS runs at 500 MHz and it's memory is clocked at 1600 MHz, it's shader processors are clocked at 1200 MHz. This Fatal1ty is clocked at 650 MHz on the core and it's memory at 2000 MHz. Next to that the shader processor domain is clocked at 1620 MHz. And that my friends is a truly huge factory pre-clock.

So that's a really nice default overclock, it will give some great additional performance over the standard clocked models. Included in the box you'll find next to the Fatality GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB graphics card the following items:

• Quick install guide
• Manual
• DVI-I to VGA dongle
• HDTV dongle
• 4-pin to single 6-pin power cable
• Driver CD, which includes NVIDIA® ForceWare unified graphics drivers, Full installation manual .pdf
• Lost planet: Full version

Yeah, you read that correctly, you get for free a full version of the hotty game Lost planet. This package has great additional value. So that's quite a nice bundle. Other manufacturers also offer 320MB OC version, but not one of them is even close to the Fatal1ty edition though.